John Malone The Full D7 Session

[thefatbaboon]

Great interview! thanks

[coc]

New 60-min interview with Malone:

 

https://overcast.fm/+I5mtwfgfU

 

Really enjoyed this one, thanks. Besides his smarts, Malone always comes across as a very likeable guy. Tough, but kind and straight forward.

[dcollon]

Thanks very much for posting this interview Liberty.

[hasilp89]

New 60-min interview with Malone:

 

https://overcast.fm/+I5mtwfgfU

 

Did anyone catch where he mentioned his strategy of writing LT covered calls? Any insight on that? Thought I read something on the board discussing it once. Have been burnt a few times doing this on great names that end up running way past the breakeven price but assume he’s got a better strategy than me.

[KJP]

New 60-min interview with Malone:

 

https://overcast.fm/+I5mtwfgfU

 

I originally posted this in the Roku thread, but decided to move it here as my ramblings got more and more untethered to Roku. 

 

Malone talks briefly about Roku in that podcast.  As he explains, Roku is trying to be a middleman aggregator.  Elsewhere in the interview he mentions that TCI once went to pre-Jobs-second-act Apple and asked them to design a UI for a hardware device they were trying to build because TCI didn't have the design expertise to do it themselves.  I think this is one of the issues Rk was getting at earlier [in the Roku thread] -- any device built by Comcast may be junk compared to what Roku builds.

 

I'm neither long nor short Roku, but I keep posting here [the Roku thread] because I'm baffled by the business, and thus fascinated by it because my bafflement suggests I don't know how this part of the world (among many others!) really works.  If I understand Roku's business correctly, it has managed to put a soft lock on consumer screens manufactured by third parties (i.e., TVs) and then charge content companies for access to those screens.  Having used a Roku device for many years, it appears to me to be a very basic "thin" layer of technology between the essential hardware (my TV) and the output from that hardware that I actually care about (video content).  How is there a $50 billion business -- and if you believe the bulls, a business going to be worth much more in the future -- in doing that?  Why are other people in the ecosystem not taking that business for themselves?

 

Microsoft and Windows seems like an obvious analogy.  But a general compute OS seems like a more complicated endeavor than a TV OS.  And, to my knowledge, Microsoft charged the computer manufacturers; they didn't also charge the third-party software developers for the privilege of writing Windows compatible software. 

 

There's also an interesting net neutrality-like issue floating around here.  In theory, broadband providers could try to charge third-parties for access to the pipes they have into your house.  But the general consensus appears to be that that is wrong and the broadband "platform" into your house should be open to third party content providers for free (or, rather, you as the broadband customer should pay all the cost).  But then we also accept that just a bit further downstream it's OK for someone to charge for access to the physical device we use to access that broadband service, e.g., Roku charging content providers for access to your TV or Apple's app store vig for third party content providers to access your iPhone. 

 

I wonder if this is one of the reasons Malone "missed" Roku.  He obviously knows about the business model of charging third-party content providers for access to his hardware; that's what he did for years by, for example, extracting equity stakes in cable channels in return for being included in the cable packages he offered to his subscribers.  That's very similar to what Roku does.  He must have seen that.  So, what happened?  Did he fear that it would be too dangerous from a regulatory perspective for the broadband company itself to do this? 

 

It also points out a limit to the Bill Gates observation that Malone quotes early in the interview.  According to Malone, Gates once told him to not worry about hardware because any piece of hardware can be emulated by software, and Malone suggests he should have listened to that advice.  But what if you can not only charge customers for your hardware, but also charge third party content providers to access that hardware as well?  In that world, the hardware would be the distribution bottleneck to be exploited by its designer/manufacturer.  That concept seems silly in the world of general computing, the internet, and broadband net neutrality.  Yet it seems to be working for Apple. 

 

Finally, do these business models also work in part because they extract value in ways that are invisible to the consumer.  Consumers understand what they pay for an iPhone; I doubt they understand the cost they indirectly bear as a result of the app store.  Likewise, people understand the cost of a Roku device; do they understand the indirect costs of allowing Roku to siphon off profits?  Buy-now-pay-later companies like Affirm and Klarna are another one.  On the surface, it looks great from the consumer perspective.  But as BNPL grows, aren't prices going to rise for everyone to account for the higher merchant discounts BNPL providers charge relative to other payment methods? 

 

OK.  That's quite enough rambling from me.

 

 

 

[Jurgis]

KJP, most of what you said is correct.  8)

[Liberty]

Recent John Malone interview on CNBC:

 

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2021/05/24/watch-cnbcs-full-interview-with-liberty-medias-john-malone-on-warnermedia-discovery-deal.html

[Liberty]

Here's a version without paywall:

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/watch-cnbcs-full-interview-with-liberty-medias-john-malone-on-warnermedia-discovery-deal/vi-AAKktQ5?ocid=uxbndlbing

[gfp]

Thanks for posting the whole video.  I had only caught dribs and drabs on CNBC.  Love seeing a great interview with Malone and that shit eating grin he busts out from time to time.  Hasn't lost a beat with age